


moan about the present, venerate the past

by IronCladFeatherFeet (handschuhmaus)



Category: Hogan's Heroes
Genre: F/M, Frau Schultz has hidden depths, Gen, I continued writing this instead of sleeping
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-01
Updated: 2019-10-01
Packaged: 2020-11-08 17:44:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,444
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20839505
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/handschuhmaus/pseuds/IronCladFeatherFeet
Summary: the title is a line from "Read the Blessed Pages"there's a mention of Freud, although in the context of his theories being lightly mocked. Also of Song of Solomon as um, an erotic textI should also note the ~prompt came from a kink bingo card, accounting for some of the subject matter





	moan about the present, venerate the past

**Author's Note:**

> the title is a line from "Read the Blessed Pages"
> 
> there's a mention of Freud, although in the context of his theories being lightly mocked. Also of Song of Solomon as um, an erotic text
> 
> <strike>I should also note the ~prompt came from a kink bingo card, accounting for some of the subject matter</strike>

Now, why exactly there are crates of books in Barracks 2, Schultz _doesn't_ want to know. But they're fine old books, and well-kept, with transparently thin pages, and--yes, soft leather covers of exactly the sort that sets in him a bittersweet flame of longing. 

Before he can indulge in nostalgia, LeBeau comes in and fiddles with scraps of leather that might almost cover a--a new book, tugging at it, but he doesn't see much success. The Frenchman's hands are more accustomed to strudel or pie crust. And, though Schultz sees _nothing, nichts, nichevo_ (he remembers just a little of the Russian lessons), he realizes that the leather with which their little chef is trying to attempt bookbinding is ersatz, is of Deutsch manufacture. Presstoff. A mere substitute that is little more than cardboard, though it looks good when it's...for decoration. Not really worthy of a book, though.

LeBeau must have spotted him. "I don't have anything for you, Schultz," he snaps. 

"Why is the tailor, the Englander not binding the book?" Schultz asks, hoping this will not to prove to be more involvement than is healthy these days.

LeBeau sputters irritably, "Zut alors! Newkirk is off in a, how you say, funk, because we couldn't get him a 'proper leather needle'!"

Schultz diplomatically refrains from asking how they could hope to obtain such needles, although the answer, one way or another, whether Klink (who probably wouldn't know one needle from another, even if he had seen the Luftwaffe Colonel stitching up a rip in his trousers in the thick of one particularly stressful week) is involved or not, is probably: Colonel Hogan. What he doesn't refrain from doing is idly picking up one of the books. It has no title printed on the outside, but opening the cover to the title page reveals "Grundlagen der Mathematik". Not Gretchen's sort of reading material then, even if the soft leather in his hands does bring to mind the follies they had had.

"Hey, don't take those, they have to leave the camp," LeBeau protests, and tries to take the book from him, but Schultz's grip on it is slightly too firm for the half-hearted grab to succeed. 

Before the conflict over the volume can proceed any further, they are interrupted by someone entering the barracks. 

"Maybe I could help," says the cheerful voice of Sergeant Carter. More than any other of the men in Barracks Two, he always strikes Schultz as an overgrown boy, with his cheery disposition and easily dispelled sadnesses.

"How could _you_ help?" LeBeau scoffs; he is very irritated, even if it is probably just the frustration with the unaccustomed task and unsuited material in his bookbinding venture.

"I made a buckskin shirt, once. They were real popular on the frontier, and Mom helped me get the leather prepared and sew it up just right,"

Schultz decides it is as good a time as any to advise him gravely, "I fear you'll still have trouble, Carter. This is Presstoff, not real leather."

Carter nods, only the slightest bit defused, and he and LeBeau chorus together "Everything is short in Germany!"

"Well--maybe it is," Schultz can't really disagree with the statement, which seems more like fact than treason.

"Mary Jane always liked that shirt," Carter reminisces with a despondent note, even as he surveys the unpromising Presstoff. "She said it made me seem like a _real_ man, a frontiersman, rough and ready."

"Pfui!" LeBeau objects, "you Americans don't know anything about the 'realness' of men. Do you think a real man _doesn't_ cook?!"

"Now I didn't say anything like that," Carter remains good-natured. "It was just Mary Jane. And I don't make _that_ great a frontiersman anyway--explod--er, I was never that good at hunting or riding."

"Jolly jokers!" Schultz exclaims. "Anyway, this book reminds me of my wife, Gretchen."

"She likes ...math?" Carter asks, after peering at the still open title page.

"I thought your wife was..." LeBeau gestures vaguely and settles for "insufferable." 

Hans has a reply for that, "Do you know, little cockroach, that I try not to think too much about the good times, or else I would cry, missing them, and Herr Kommandant Klink would be very mad at me, for showing such softness in front of the prisoners?"

"We wouldn't judge ya for it, Schultz," Carter chimes in, following the turn in the conversation.

"It's all right. It's just that she used to read books like these, and really she was the only one I knew who read these fancy books with such soft leather on the binding. And they'd be _naughty_ books, or at least that's how she said they were, and on Sundays too! Of course, the Hohelied Salomos is in the _Bible_, but I don't think Gott in Himmel meant us to laugh at the metaphors and use them at each other. I can't tell _you_ what she used to say about me or word would get around the camp and that too would aggravate the Big Shot." 

Ever since those days, soft leather made him think of Gretchen's silly lead-ins to taking him to bed, sharing those odd humorous bits and laughing at them and teasing him. Whether or not it pleased these young Americans to consider (though LeBeau might be less concerned by it, being French), they had several kids, so he and Gretchen certainly knew a few things about marital relationships.

"The Hohe-huh?" Carter asks blankly.

"I think he means le Cantique de Cantiques," LeBeau offers, which probably doesn't clarify things. 

"The one where the gentleman tells the fraulein she has oh, ears like goats and" Schultz waves vaguely, "chest like towers. Or something. I never read it now without Gretchen."

"...oh," Carter allows. 

LeBeau rolls his eyes. "That is not all that romantic these days, Schultzie."

"Well, no. Also she would read Herr Doktor Freud, and I don't think anyone could find as much humor in that as meine Gretchen."

"Freud? Wasn't he, you know, Jewish?" Carter asks.

"Ja," Schultz assents, and confesses: "Boys, me and my Gretchen, we are not what der Führer thinks of as good Germans. But--I do not think my country was meant for so much war and so little happiness." 

LeBeau seems to resent that remark, but he more evenly says "Neither is la France."

"Much as I like you boys, I do wish the war was over and I could go back home and do"--he winks at Carter-- "..._naughty_ things with my wife again, and spoil my children, and make toys to make people happy. And that you could go back to your homes. But you cannot tell Colonel Hogan, and you absolutely mustn't tell Herr Oberst Klink--he might send me to the Russian front."

"Oh, I don't think Colonel Klink would do _that_," Carter says "I don't think he really likes the war that much himself. He definitely doesn't want to go to the Russian front, so he shouldn't go around sending other people there." 

"Hush, Carter, no matter how the Kommandant feels, he--and I--have to say and act like we're loyal to the Reich, or else--" Schultz mimes cutting his throat. 

"Which is why we should get these books out of here. Schultzie, do you know where we could get some glue?"

He has to think for a moment. "Maybe, LeBeau. If you will give me a piece of your chocolate."

"Schultz! And you've been so open with us and everything!" Carter exclaims in dismay, while LeBeau only dons a waiting frown.

"Boys, it isn't for me. The man who I think might have glue has a little girl and nothing to give her for her birthday."

"Are you serious?" LeBeau asks.

Schultz doesn't answer him with words, just strokes the soft leather of the book one final time as he lays it down with his thoughts of wife and home and romps on weekend afternoons and prepares to resume his normal stern countenance, or at least as stern as he gets.

Carter finally agrees. "Well, okay. Are you sure you don't have a toy tucked away somewhere to give her?"

"Sergeant Carter," as odd as it feels to give this boy equal ranking, "I think the family is going to be _leaving_ Hammelburg soon.'

He understands that; he says "Oh!"

The door to the Barracks opens again, admitting Sergeant Kinchloe, who asks casually, "Anything happening?". Schultz takes the opportunity to leave, filing away both the request for glue and the presence of the books as things which he may need to not admit to knowing at some point in the near future.

**Author's Note:**

> (It's not entirely clear to me how dissimilar Presstoff is from real leather, or from the plastic based substitutes I'm probably more familiar with, since it's cited in a variety of uses. but I'm supposing both that the prisoners may not have access to a very good quality version, and that a substitute made from paper pulp might not have the same suppleness, stretch, or flexibility as the real thing)


End file.
